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News Corp boss upbeat on Aust titles

Evan Schwarten

News Corp chief Robert Thomson is optimistic about the company's Australian titles, despite another big slide in revenue.

Revenue from the company's Australian newspapers, which include the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph fell 18 per cent during the year to June 30 as advertisers continue to abandon the print market.

But Mr Thomson said the rate of decline in advertising had slowed and the company's focus on local advertising was paying off.

"Clearly the winds have been buffeting... but at the moment there are indications the rate of decline has declined, there are green shoots on the Nullarbor Plain," he said.

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"We have focused on local advertising and the local advertising revenue trajectory has changed."

Fusion Strategy media analyst Steve Allen said advertisers had ditched the print medium at almost twice the rate of the decline in circulation.

"Advertisers and their media agencies basically turned their back on print and we saw really severe declines which are only just starting to slow," he said.

But he said while advertising revenue is likely to flatten out at some point, the company, it was likely the decline in circulation would continue.

"For News it has been more an advertising problem than a circulation problem but they will face a circulation problem," he said.

"Our view would be that as the losses of advertising revenue start to stem, it's likely there will be an increase in the rate of decline in circulation and cover revenue."

The Australian print news division was again the biggest drag on the company's core news and information division, where earnings fell 16 per cent to $US130 million ($A140.65 million) for the 12 months to June 30.

Total revenue for the year fell four per cent to $US8.57 billion, with the weakness in the news division offset by gains from its cable, digital real estate and book publishing arms.

News Corp's net profit dropped 53 per cent to $US237 million for 2013/14, though the result was skewed by a one-off gain in the previous year's results from the sale of its stake in New Zealand's SKY Network Television.

Meanwhile, the UK hacking scandal continued to weigh on News Corp, which spent $US72 million in fees and costs linked to the matter during the year.